Like Coming Home
by xox-'.'-K-A-G-O-M-E-'.'-xox
Summary: Sasuke watches Naruto sleeping one morning and remembers all they've been through with dealing with Sasuke's mental instability to get to where they are now.


_For **La Vita a Colori **for her and her lovely's eight year anniversary! Its angsty and only slightly sweet and fluffy but you know how I am with angst so…. I had to put something horrific and insane and post-coming-home-crazy-Sasukeness in there ;P (I'm liking crazy!Sasuke atm)It wasn't really intentional, just kinda happened…We can just say its about sticking with each other through everything!_

_Anyway, Izaya! Thank you for being my inspirational, beautiful, talented, awesomely awesome oneechan! Congrats on eight years! *spamslove*_

_Enjoy!_

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><p><strong>Like Coming Home<strong>

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The room was silent save the deep breathing of the one sleeping. In and out. Sweet, sleeping breath washing over the sunbathed pillows and bed sheets. It was early morning and the village was quiet, yet to break into the noisy hustle bustle of everyday life. And Sasuke watched him in the silence.

Naruto.

Dark eyes traced the curve of his jaw and across his funny whiskers. His almost blonde eyelashes fanned against the rise of his cheek on one side where lying against the pillow lifted his face. His sunny skin exposed to the waist was rich and smooth, a warm colour in the sunlight. Sasuke didn't know how the other man managed to sleep with the sunlight spilling into the room through their too-thin curtains, but nothing like that mattered at all. Naruto, despite how he hated being called so, was beautiful. His lips were a light shade of pink, his cheek flushed from sleep under his eyes and his thick messy hair flopped to the side and slightly too long. He was gorgeous. Not in the way that he turned heads when he walked through the village, but in a way that once he looked at you, he seemed to light up and you couldn't help but stare. His eyes closing into his smile and his mouth stretched out across his face…

Sasuke shook his head smiling a little and shifted his eyes around the room. The tick of a clock somewhere in the house became apparent as he took in the huge wall scroll with the konoha symbol on it, the open wardrobe doors, the orange garments scattered on the floor and the navy hung and neat, the old arm chair near the door. In the corner the two kittens, Izaya and Shizu lay curled up in their basket, a sleeping yin and yang of black-brown and weak sunshine blonde.

This was their home. His and Naruto's. This room was theirs. The place where anything outside of the four walls became nothing. There were no ninja or missions here.

Out of the corner of his eye Sasuke caught the small bottle on the high window sill behind the bed head. He sat up and took it in his hand, letting it roll on his palm. The pills inside rattled and Sasuke examined the ingrained blood in the tiny ridges of the lid. From the times when Sasuke came home from a mission and needed them. The corner of the label was flicked up and rounded. From the times Sasuke sat at home trying to tell himself he didn't need them to calm him, Naruto would be home soon, all the while, his thumb nervously playing with the loose side.

Naruto groaned quietly and his fingers twitched. Sasuke watched him for a moment and then tightened his grip on his medication.

He remembered it well… The times from before Naruto had taken him to see Tsunade. Before Naruto had dragged him kicking and screaming to see Tsunade. Before Tsunade had strapped him to the hospital bed and made him listen to her…

He remembered times like when he used to go in the early morning of rainy days and sit in Konoha's graveyard. Just sit before the head stone of his mother. He never spoke.

And sometimes, Sasuke would spend days in bed. Sometimes, he stayed out and trained until he collapsed and slept at the training ground.

Sometimes, he would be in a conversation with Kakashi and then suddenly feel the need to hit something. So he did.

Sometimes, he sat in the bath and painted Naruto's, Sakura's, Itachi's name all over the white tiled wall in his blood. Sometimes he sat and watched the red turn thin and weak as it floated up through the water like smoke…

Soon after he and Naruto had become and 'item' of sorts, he sometimes followed Naruto all day. But never showed himself, even though he was well aware Naruto knew he was there.

Sometimes, he showed up in the middle of the night and had Naruto, bleary eyed and messy haired, answer his door just so Sasuke could touch some part of him; his hand, his cheek, his eyelids, the soft inside of his arm, and then leave without a word.

Sometimes, they stayed at Naruto's place for days, weeks, months. Sometimes they stayed at Sasuke's. And Naruto never said a word when Sasuke didn't take the right at the fork in the road on the way home and moved in with him for a while. He always got two plates out and got out extra blankets even though Sasuke had given him no warning. He never questioned when Sasuke took his hand and dragged him home with him. Sasuke didn't know whether that sort of thing was 'living together' but Naruto never asked. Just showed Sasuke his idiot smile and they carried on.

Sometimes, when they went for dinner with the others, Sasuke would put his hand on Naruto's knee and leave it there the whole night. Sometimes at the end he'd smirk and they'd go home hand in hand. Sometimes he sat and refused to talk, pretending he didn't know anyone…

What he remembered most vividly was Naruto. And what he did to him.

Sometimes, Sasuke would wake in the middle of the night crying from a scene from the past, the adrenaline and shivers channeling to all the wrong places of his body. He burned and longed to be touched, feeling sick and angry and a horrific urge to cry and laugh at the same time. He'd toss and turn sweat and groan and drive himself into his own hand with his face buried in the pillow, desperate to be released. Sometimes Naruto tried to stop him, waking to find Sasuke's teeth sunk into his own arm or an unused hand tearing at raven hair or reaching to strangle himself. His body couldn't tell the difference between pleasure and pain, fear and excitement. Sometimes he forced Naruto to take him raw and dry, splitting him open, letting blood stain the white sheets.

Sometimes, Naruto told him he loved him afterwards and sometimes he rolled over and lay very still.

Sometimes Naruto came home and Sasuke would be fine one moment, telling him 'tadaima' and the next, shoving him against the wall and tearing the clothes from his body. Taking him in the entry way, bent over the step up into the house as Naruto cried and yelled for him to stop.

Sasuke remembered how sometimes they couldn't kiss without him wanting to draw blood…

The side of the bottle cracked in Sasuke's hand and he laughed breathily. Tsunade was amazing, to have been able to put together the medicine to sort Sasuke out. Even after his extensive therapy he had been unstable; more himself, but still unstable. Especially at night. But with the pills he'd settled. Become who he should be.

Naruto huffed in his sleep and turned over. Sasuke's face pulled together into an anguished frown, his chest tightening.

He'd been a monster.

Erratic mood swings, self harm, hurting others… But Naruto had stayed with him all that time. He had taken everything Sasuke had thrown at him… Even after a bad day he'd still show Sasuke that dobe-y smile like nothing had happened. Never showing how much it affected him. How much Sasuke hurt him.

He had even smiled the day Sasuke came home from recovering, even though maybe the therapy and treatment hadn't work and nothing had changed, he had smiled. Sasuke had stood uncertainly in the doorframe watching him. But Naruto had smiled. He'd sat on the porch and patted the space next to him. He'd laid with his head in Sasuke's lap and believed in him. Trusted he had done his best and he wouldn't hurt him anymore. He still loved him… Even after everything…

Sasuke hung his head and clenched his teeth. Pressure behind his eyes. But he wouldn't cry. Because now, there was too much to be thankful for. So he wouldn't cry anymore.

He wouldn't cry because now Naruto didn't stand in the doorway and shuffle his feet nervously, ready to fend Sasuke off if he had to. Because Naruto didn't roll over and be still after sex. Because Naruto arched into his touch instead of pulling away from it. Because Naruto's eyes didn't darken with pity or fear or sadness anymore when he saw Sasuke.

Because they had kittens that snuggled and fell asleep in their laps and ran circles around their feet. Because they had favourite mugs next to each other in the cupboard; orange and blue. Because they had a 'dattebayo' welcome mat with two pairs of sandals in the entry. Because they had bubble bath mix and twin tooth brushes in the bathroom.

Because they, because Sasuke, had home.

"…Sasuke…?" Naruto slurred his name sleepily and Sasuke opened his dark eyes, immediately searching for Naruto's blue ones. The blonde looked up at him from where he lay.

"Hey," said Sasuke quietly. Naruto smiled.

"Guess what I had a dream about Teme." Sasuke reached out and pushed Naruto's too-long fringe out of his eyes.

"What did you dream?"

"I dreamed," began Naruto, taking Sasuke's hand in his and playing with the pads of his fingers. "About you when we were little." Blue met black. Sasuke blinked questioningly.

"Remember sometimes you really didn't want me to near you? Like you were scared you were gonna catch the stupid or-"

"So you admit you're stupid."

"Shut up. Anyway, do you remember?" Sasuke didn't respond and Naruto's face dropped its smile. He propped himself up on one elbow and Sasuke admired how the angle made his shoulders look unusually broad.

"Sasu?"

"…I remember," said Sasuke letting a tiny smile that Naruto didn't return play on his lips. There was something in his expression that Sasuke couldn't find the word for. A moment passed and then Sasuke spoke slowly.

"I was scared... To connect with anyone. Especially you since I'd seen it. How you made such strong bonds with people. You were scary to me." Naruto's hold on his hand tightened.

"I didn't want anyone near me… In case they were taken away from me again… I was… scared.." When he was done, Naruto reached for him and hooked an arm around his neck, pulling Sasuke on top of him. They lay with their bodies pressed together, Naruto's arms around Sasuke's neck and combing his fingers through his hair. Sasuke closed his eyes.

"Are you scared now?" Naruto's voice rumbled in his chest.

"Not now," replied Sasuke into his neck. "Not now..."

They stayed together, breathing in and out as one. There was a conversation in the silence. In Naruto's hands in his hair, on his back. In Sasuke's lips at his neck and collarbone. In the space between their breaths. They lay in the quiet for a long time. So long that Sasuke thought Naruto may have fallen back to sleep until he spoke again.

"But seriously Teme, you were such a shy kid."

One second to take in the change of mood and then the raven lifted his head and struggled up onto one elbow. Naruto was grinning but there were shiny tear tracks on the side of his face. Sasuke ran his thumb through them and Naruto closed his eyes and laughed, throaty and deep, the sound caught in his throat. Sasuke smiled and wanted to cry too.

"You're beautiful," murmured one to the other as he bent and kissed him, soft and gentle.

Love.


End file.
